The Global Industry Leaders’ Forum
focuses on securing a wireless future and on "light touch" regulation

Photo credit: ITU/V. Martin

Executive summary

Wireless technology will play a critical role in
achieving ubiquitous broadband coverage. In particular,
mobile broadband will be essential to the delivery
of services such as m-health and m-learning,
which will be instrumental in enabling governments
to meet, by 2015, the connectivity targets of the
World Summit on the Information Society and the
United Nations Millennium Development Goals.

Increasing broadband use by 10 per cent is estimated
to increase a country’s gross domestic product
(GDP) by more than 1 per cent. Broadband is considered
to be a key enabler for the digital economy, but
a delay in spectrum allocation could impede growth.

To secure a wireless future, governments should
formulate comprehensive policy in information and
communication technologies (ICT), incorporating a
broadband plan. Regulators and policy-makers need
to ensure that regulation is in place that will encourage
and enable operators to continue rolling out infrastructure,
including broadband networks, not only
in urban areas, but also in rural and remote areas
where people have little or no service.

These were some of the key messages from the
Global Industry Leaders’ Forum (GILF-10), held on
9 November 2010 at the Méridien President Hotel
in Dakar, Senegal. GILF-10 took place just prior to
the Global Symposium for Regulators (GSR), held
at the same venue from 10 to 12 November 2010.
Both events shared a common theme: “Enabling
Tomorrow’s Digital World”.

The Forum was opened by Fatou Ndiaye Diop
Blondin, Senegal’s Minister of Information and
Communication Technologies and featured interactive
discussions between representatives from leading
industry players including Alcatel-Lucent, Bharti
Airtel, Ericsson, France Telecom-Orange, the GSMA,
Intersat Africa Ltd, MTN, SES and Zain. More than
200 industry leaders discussed and answered a string
of questions on the topics of “Securing a wireless future”
and “creating a ’light touch’ policy and regulatory
environment”.

The tremendous interest
in wireless network development
and the notion of “light
touch regulation”, expressed
during the 2009 Global
Industry Leaders’ Forum, led
to the choice of these topics
for discussion by the Forum
in 2010. Recommendations
endorsed by the Forum were
presented by its Chairman
to GSR for consideration
when developing its 2010
Best Practice Guidelines. The
recommendations, some of
which are highlighted here,
were also disseminated to
other regulators and policymakers
globally.

Framing the issues

Addressing the opening ceremony of the Forum,
Sami Al Basheer Al Morshid, Director of the ITU
Telecommunication Development Bureau (BDT) underlined
that industry, governments and regulators
had major interests in common. “We are all striving
towards the same goal: a growing and vibrant ICT
sector,” he said. “If, by working together, we manage
to extend the benefits of ICT to as many people
as possible across the world, we stand to win. We
have seen that the fastest growing ICT markets are
the emerging markets, in particular in mobile. We
now need to work together to extend this progress
to broadband network expansion, to create a platform
for innovative new services such as m-banking, m-government, m-health and other services.”

Isabelle MauroHead of External Affairs at GSM Association, which represents nearly 800 of the world’s
mobile operators, as well as more than 200 companies in the broader mobile ecosystem

Ms Diop Blondin was pleased to note that the
items on the Forum’s agenda
were particularly geared
towards reducing obstacles
to investment in ICT in developing
and least developed
countries. “You will, I
am sure, agree with me that
while the State is responsible
for putting in place the legal
and regulatory framework
for ICT services, the private
sector that you represent
should be at the forefront of
the thinking and innovative
proposals aimed at ensuring
that we are able, together, to
identify the best solutions.”

In Senegal, the Head of
State, President Abdoulaye
Wade, attaches a high priority to ICT and to the role
of the private sector as a driver for growth and digital
development. “The Government of Senegal, which
I have the honour to represent here, is listening to
what you have to say and is committed to supporting
the recommendations arising from your deliberations,”
concluded Ms Diop Blondin.

Mahfoudh Ould Brahim, Chairman of GILF-10
and Deputy Director-General of mobile operator
Expresso, Senegal, stated that “The increasingly exponential
needs of communication services in terms
of frequency spectrum, particularly where wireless
broadband and total mobility
services are concerned, call
for a comprehensive revision
of the policies hitherto pursued
with respect to the allocation
of scarce frequency
resources”. To this end, we
need to reflect on appropriate
ways and means for
establishing an optimized
apportionment solution to
accommodate the various
beneficiaries and services,
ensure access to the resources
in question under equitable
and transparent conditions
and foster innovation
in the interests of efficient
spectrum usage.

Mr Ould Brahim went on to say that “At another
level, we need to start looking at the impact that
fiscal policies have on the
development of the telecommunication
industry in order
to appreciate the ways in
which taxation systems influence
telecommunication sector
growth, the mobilization
of private investment and
access to information and
communication technologies
for the greatest number of
users”.

Isabelle Mauro, Head
of External Affairs at GSM
Association, observed that
while mobile communications
had literally transformed
the world over the
previous 20 years, they were now in the process of
revolutionizing it through the phenomenon of mobile
broadband. “With 3.5 billion users foreseen by
2015, there was now an
extraordinary opportunity
for accelerating the pace of
growth in many developing
countries and enabling their
populations to open up to a
better future.”

Ms Mauro continued by
pointing out that the industry,
for its part, was pursuing
its commitment through
massive investment worldwide.
“At the G20 in 2009,
the industry announced an
investment of USD 800 billion
over the next five years,
with USD 550 billion of that
amount earmarked solely for
broadband. That investment
will make for a 3 to 4 per cent
increase in global GDP and the creation of 25 million
jobs.” Such a commitment on the part of the industry
called for sustained attention on the part of all governments
and regulators, which she summarized in
the form of three measures:

A relaxation of the regulatory framework: A
recent study by McKinsey had concluded that the
monthly per-user cost of broadband was 75 per cent
lower for consumers in a regulatory environment
which favoured investment — in other words, an
environment that was transparent, stable and predictable.
It was therefore important for regulators to
draw up a clear overview of their regulatory objectives
so as to enable economic players to continue to
innovate and invest in broadband.

Allocation of the spectrum required for the development of new servicestaken by the World Radiocommunication
Conference
taken by the World Radiocommunication
Conference
(WRC) in 2012 and beyond
would be crucial to the success
of broadband. It was
essential that governments
should foresee the allocation
of more frequencies for mobile
use and draw up a harmonized
road map for freeing
up spectrum and thereby
contributing to economies of
scale worldwide.

Reduction of mobilespecific charges: Many
countries still appeared to be
charging for mobile services
as if they were a luxury product,
resulting in a higher end
cost to the consumer.

Recommendations on securing a wireless future

Governments should rethink the way spectrum is
allocated in order to find ways of providing new services,
including broadband at affordable prices, to the
growing number of users around the world. In particular,
governments should allocate more spectrum
to mobile use and develop a harmonized road map
for the release of such additional spectrum.

Governments should ensure that spectrum is allocated
on a technology-neutral basis so that the
industry can continue to modernize networks and
maximize their efficiency.

Governments, with the support of ITU, should harmonize
spectrum allocation and use at regional and
global levels to provide predictability to operators as
well economies of scale, recognizing that if frequency
is fragmented this comes at a price for consumers,
and that harmonization is required for a more efficient use of the “digital dividend” spectrum.

Operators, broadcasters, public spectrum users
and regulators should engage in real dialogue on
how to use the digital dividend spectrum in order to
provide customers the services they need, with ITU
playing a bigger role in assisting developing countries
to enable all concerned stakeholders to engage
in this dialogue.

Governments should acknowledge that fair access
to spectrum is one of the key factors to ensure
viable and sustainable service and competition, and
they should make spectrum available in a manner
that makes serving rural areas economically viable
for operators.

Regulators, working with ITU where appropriate,
should review spectrum use and the future requirements
of mobile and non-mobile applications, and
should establish mechanisms that provide incentives
for efficient use of spectrum.

Recommendations on creating a “light touch” policy and regulatory environment

Regulators should continue to promote fair competition
and intervene only in cases of market failure.
For example, an incumbent monopoly might be protected
if it is to be privatized or required to open up
to competition, but new entrants should be allowed
to operate unencumbered and unthreatened by any
abuse of dominance.

Light touch regulation, which should be predictable
and stable, should focus more on overseeing
licence compliance and anti-competitive behaviour
than on strictly controlling all operational steps undertaken
by operators.

Governments should remove mobile-specific levies
and fees that distort the market and stifle growth
in the sector. In particular, they should review any
taxes or charges that directly impede connection to
mobile networks, and they should reduce or eliminate
taxation on communications, as well as import
duties on handsets, as these duties can keep the retail
cost of mobile phones beyond the reach of many
consumers.

Regulators and policy-makers should establish dialogue
with their peers in other sectors of the economy,
such as health, education, transport and finance
in order to create an enabling environment for the
introduction and adoption of new, innovative ICT applications
in those sectors… A regional approach to
regulatory issues should also be encouraged.

In many countries of the developing world, governments
and regulators should use the universal
service obligation (USO) Fund to cover rural and
remote areas in order to promote affordability and
coverage in those areas. In some countries, USO
subsidies have been collected from operators, but
remain largely unused because there are no effective
mechanisms for their disbursement. In these cases,
governments, regulators and operators should work
in partnership to put in place transparent mechanisms
for the management and redistribution of the
USO Fund.

Governments, regulators and operators should
look for innovative ways of promoting community
access to empower people in rural areas to join the
rest of the virtual world. For example, community access
points, such as rural Internet kiosks, can create
a chain reaction, leading to demand for more connectivity
throughout rural areas and hastening the
development of local economies.